Andra Marcus

A war hero who founded a new nation state

General Andra Marcus

Biographical Brief

General Marcus was the leading figure advocating for the formation of the victorious Delphi Pact, the military alliance that eventually overthrew the Princes' Hidden Empire in 973 PCE. Through her military clout and reputation as a fair-dealing political leader, she successfully brokered the deal to unify the Skyland Zones and afterwards led the Congress of the Merikas to ratify a constitution establishing the Merikan Republic.

Physical Description

General Physical Condition:

Andra Marcus has a tall, athletic frame. She moves with a combination of strength and and grace that belies her considerable personal confidence.

Facial Features:

Andra has a smooth copper skin tone, angular features and high, prominent cheekbones. Her straight black hair is elegantly-styled and she has light hazel eyes.

Mental Characteristics

Education:

Andra Marcus received military training and indoctrination in teknic lore at the Croatan Academy.

Intellectual Characteristics:

During her military career Andra Marcus earned a reputation as a cool-headed, reliable commander. Her integrity and compassion secured the loyalty of her soldiers in the field and proved equally compelling in the board rooms of state.

Location: Union Delphi
Status: Imprisoned
Birthplace: Montrose

Virginia Zone

Year of Birth: 945

(55 years old)

Gender: Female
Affiliations: Merikan

Republic (dissolved), Delphi Pact (defunct)

Merikan Union

Open full size

A map of the Merikan Union, it's constituent Zones, and bordering Zones.

Biographical Detail

Andra Marcus was born to an aristocratic family of lesser Teknocrats during the latter reign of the Hidden Empire. House Marcus held the defence of the western approaches of an imperial administrative region known as the Princehold. As "Defender's of the Princehold's Western Gate," the Marcus family boasted an impressive martial tradition dating back to the fifth century PCE, the earliest days of the Princes' occupation of the Skyland Zones.

The Marcus family's tradition of unwavering loyalty and service began to wane late in the 10th century PCE, however, when the declining military fortunes of the Hidden Empire in its far flung Asian and European outposts drove the imperial Tetrarchs to impose ever more onerous wartime burdens upon their Skyland subjects. The introduction of regressive poll taxes and conscripted labour camps fomented a state of general unrest throughout Skyland. When unprecedented slave revolts broke out in the empire's Laradan frontier zones, House Marcus was deployed to put down the rebels. This campaign taxed the strength of the Marcus family's western banners and placed strain upon the leadership of House Marcus.

During this time Andra Marcus served as lance captain in the household cavalry troop of her father, Governor Mendo "Falcon" Marcus. When Falcon Marcus fell wounded in the Battle of Tanasi, Andra assumed command of the western banners and struggled to maintain the army's supply and field readiness. With morale at a low ebb, she witnessed her family's own household retainers begin to speak of desertion. After pleading in vain for reinforcements from XHAN's imperial command, Captain Marcus resolved to keep faith with her family's vassals and joined them in mutiny.

During the initial wave of desertions, Andra Marcus's followers chose her as commander and raised her to the rank of general. In time, their band of turncoats welcomed ever larger numbers of volunteers and eventually came to be known as the New Reformed Army, a free militia raised from deserters who had refused service in the Steel Legion Auxiliary. This free militia, funded by Marcus's family wealth and based out of the Appalachian foothills of the Virginia Zone's western frontier, proceeded to conduct a guerrilla campaign against the Hidden Empire and thwart the Princes' efforts to pacify their rebel zones. The New Reformed Army eventually constituted the backbone of the Delphi Pact's military forces and considerably bolstered the fighting strength of the Britannian Expeditionary Forces when they arrived in Skyland to invade the heartland of the Hidden Empire in Old Nehark.

After the Battle of New York and the pacification of the Old Zones, General Marcus leveraged the renown she had won during her military career and campaigned to help realize the formation of a new Merikan Republic. Through careful negotiations she assembled a coalition known as the Unity Party, which constituted a committed bloc of voting delegates at the Delphi Conference of 974 PCE. With General Marcus's leadership, the Unity Party ratified the first Federal Constitution and instituted the new Republic of the Merikan Zones. In that same year, General Marcus sought and won election to the office of President and became the New Republic's first head of state.

President Marcus's second term as Merikan President contended with the rise of the National Party, a political movement advocating for (among other things) a stronger, more-centralized federal union. The strength of Marcus's personal popularity and influence held the Nationalists at bay, but her successor, President Enoch Camrihn, failed to suppress their reformist zeal, which eventually led to the bitterly contested constitutional convention of 986 PCE.

During the convention, former President Marcus came out of retirement to speak out against the Nationalists' authoritarian rhetoric and territorial expansionism, and her criticisms prevented the National Party from obtaining the votes necessary to amend the constitution. This resulted in a hung convention which left many Nationalist partisans vowing to achieve through force of arms what the political process had denied.

These threats soon led to a civil war known as the Unification War, a conflict which pitted the Old Zones of the Princes' technocracy against the other Merikan zones. In spite of General Marcus's experienced leadership, the Republic's forces were defeated after a brutal two-year campaign which led to the imposition of a Second Constitution and the formation of a new federal state, the Merikan Union. General Marcus has remained a prisoner of the Merikan Union since the end of the war.